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There is but one legitimate method of avoiding increase of family, and this should be adopted only for legitimate reasons, such as bona fide considerations of health or clearly established peculiarities of constitution. No sordid calculations of economy should have a feather 's
weight in its adoption. Whom the Lord endows with existence He provides for, according to the needs of His children, and no mere human foresight can discover whether economy lies in the increase or diminution in
the number of children. This most judicious method of avoiding offspring is entire continence during the time it is desirable or necessary to remain exempt. All other methods of prevention of offspring are disgusting,
beastly, positively wrongful, as well as unnatural, and physically injurious. Some of them are so revolting that it is impossible to imagine how persons with the least pretensions to decency can adopt them. Any deliberate preparations with such an object savor too much of cold-blooded calculation to be even possible with pure-minded people. At best, the conjugal act should be spontaneous, and directly in. accordance with the promptings of nature. A husband who can coolly lay his plans with reference to future performances of this character is guilty of practicing the seducer's art in relation to his own marriage bed; he is the unclean bird that literally befouls his own nest. It is then impossible that those who are guilty of such practices can be ignorant of their wicked and criminal nature, and the woman who consents, equally with the man who organizes the method, is a willful and premeditated criminal. We are not writing for the benefit of such persons. We can positively assert, however, that, without a single exception, they are certainly productive of disastrous consequences to health.
